Marcu 14, 1884. ] 
— As long ago as 1868, René de Semallé made the 
statement before the Paris geographical society, that, 
granting the general diminution of the Indians of the 
United States from year to year, the decrease has 
been arrested in the case of the Iroquois and other 
partially civilized tribes; and that there will arrive a 
time when the general decline will reach its lowest 
point, and will be followed by an increase, normal and 
continuous. The total disappearance of a tribe is 
something veryrare. At Nablous we find the Samar- 
itans still protesting toward the temple of Jerusalem, 
destroyed eighteen hundred years ago. In the strug- 
gle for existence, before re-adjustments are made, the 
weak begin to decline before the strong; but, after 
the bloody struggle is over, each party to the conflict 
finds itself undergoing modifications which are the 
conditions of survival. In using the figures of the 
census reports and of the Indian-office report, M. 
Semallée falls into the error, pointed out by Mr. Si- 
monin, of supposing that the Indians have increased 
by birth simply because there seems to be the addi- 
tion of several thousands in the census. The truth 
is, there are many causes of fluctuation; such as 
crossing the border, and moving from place to place. 
The truth remains, however, that the Indians are 
slowly increasing. 
— Dr. Delaunay is the author of a paper in the 
memoirs of the Société d’ethnographie, upon the in- 
feriority of precocious races. The term ‘ precocity,’ as 
applied by biologists to individuals, explains a similar 
phenomenon as applied to societies. Claude Bernard 
tells us that the force of development is greatest in 
the inferior animals, and that this precocity is an 
evidence of inferiority, and excludes longevity. The 
inferior races of men mature most rapidly. An Es- 
kimo, African, Arab, or Cochin-China child of one 
year is farther advanced in body and mind than a 
white child of the same age. The young Japanese at 
Paris excel the French boys up to the sixteenth year; 
and then there is an arrest of development. M. De- 
launay makes the same assertion respecting puberty, 
cranial sutures, the different centuries of history, sex, 
the various periods of the same life, strength of con- 
stitutions, and different parts of the same body. The 
inferior races, by virtue of their precocity, became 
civilized before the superior races, and then suffered 
an arrest of development, became extinct or fossilized. 
The races and the civilizations of China, Egypt, etc., 
have evolved just as the individual Chinaman or 
Egyptian has evolved. On the contrary, the higher 
modern societies have developed slowly, just as 
develop the men who compose them. We may go 
farther, says M. Delaunay, and affirm, that, as the 
members of the body develop with different degrees 
of rapidity, so do the various groups or classes of the 
same society. The author combats the idea that our 
modern civilizations are the children and heirs of 
the older ones, from which they sprang, and without 
which they would not now exist. Speaking of the 
French, he affirms that they did not descend from 
the Aryans; that their language is not Aryan; that 
their domestic animals did not come from Asia; that 
their civilization is Celtic, not Greek and Roman. 
SCIENCE. 3089 
Finally, the civilization of Europe las been retarded 
by influences from Asia. Not to speak of cholera, 
plague, and other maladies, two-thirds of our intel- 
lectual lives are spent in perpetuating the errors and 
exploded fancies of Asiatic, Greek, and Roman think- 
ers and myth-makers, 
— Francois Lenormant, who recently died at the 
early age of forty-six, was a most enthusiastic stu- 
dent of antiquity. A man endowed with great power 
of work, and interested in all archeological research, 
he was in recent years more specially concerned with 
the early Asiatic civilizations. The study of the cu- 
neiform inscriptions had for him special charms. The 
most interesting use which he has made of these 
researches is to be found in his book, Les origines 
de Vhistoire. Here he finds in the literature of the 
cuneiform inscriptions abundant inaterial for compar- 
ison with the early traditions of the Jews and of 
other nations, as to creation, the deluge, and a whole 
circle of primitive beliefs. One of the latest fruits 
of his pen is a translation of the book of Genesis, 
in which, by the use of different kinds of type, he dis- 
tinguishes the portions which he supposes to have 
come from different authors. Though a good Catho- 
lic, M. Lenormant did not allow his religion to inter- 
fere with his science, nor his science with his religion. 
Himself a religious spirit, he claimed for investiga- 
tion the fullest freedom, and denied the propriety of 
dividing science into a Christian and a non-Christian 
faction. 
— Mr. T. Lewis writes as follows in At home: — 
There is, as may naturally be supposed, no impor- 
tant break in the chain of mounds stretching along the 
Mississippi valley from its lower regions to Minnesota; 
for they are very numerous along the river-bluffs up 
to the mouth of the St. Croix. They are then met 
with at intervals on the plateaus and headlands of 
the Mississippi as far north as Little Falls. In like 
manner they occupy the River St. Croix from its 
mouth to Yellow River, if not beyond that point. 
They are also found in abundance on the lower Min- 
nesota River, and continue up that stream to Big 
Stone Lake, thence along that lake and Lake Traverse, 
and down the valley of the Red River to beyond 
Winnipeg in Manitoba. About the geographical cen- 
tre of Minnesota, and in the westward region adja- 
cent, aboriginal earthworks are often discovered ; there 
being some particularly noticeable ones in Otter Tail 
county. In the north-eastern quarter of the state, 
with one or two slight exceptions, we have no authen- 
tic account of the existence of any artificial mounds. 
There are also many mounds around Lake Minnetonka 
and along Crow River: indeed, there are more or less 
on nearly every small stream and lake in central and 
southern Minnesota. The largest one known in the 
state is situated on the lower end of Dayton’s Bluff 
in St. Paul, its former height being eighteen feet. 
Another very handsome mound is located in the vil- 
lage of White Bear, near the lake shore: it is conical 
in form, and thirteen feet high. Occasionally elon- 
gated mounds and embankments have been met with 
that have been termed ‘forts;’ but definite surveys 
and much critical examination are required before it 
